We focus on the latest news surrounding data breaches, leaks and hacks plus daily internet security articles.
In the UK last year, the coronavirus pandemic caused us to lead more and more of both our personal and professional lives online. As such, the risk of fraud from data breaches has heightened.
In 2020, The Daily Express reported that one in five people (equating to around 11 million) had their data hacked, and one in three reported that they are unequipped to protect their online data. This is a shocking number of victims which, in our view, is indicative of a national crisis in cybercrime. It undoubtedly reveals that large-scale action needs to be taken.
Indeed, the shocking nature of such statistics is part of the problem, as experts (ourselves included) cite low awareness as a key reason why the number of victims has been allowed to reach this horrifying height. The vice-president of Clario, the body which compiled the research in association with thinktank Demos, highlighted that victims seem to “think they should suffer in silence”.
Warnings of increased numbers of Open University cyberattacks have hit the news after the London-based remote learning institute revealed that they have been subject to more than 1.1 million attempted cyberattacks since January 2020.
An element of these staggering figures could be put down to the coronavirus pandemic and the first national lockdown, with the second lockdown thought to potentially lead to more. With more people forced to work remotely, and many other universities now going online, the Open University has reportedly seen huge numbers of people looking to learn new skills during lockdown, or to boost their qualifications.
With the increase in online learning, as with everything else moving more online, there has been an increased number of cyberattack attempts. Particularly with the mass amounts of new devices on university servers, the Open University could be subject to many more cyberattacks given that being online is at the core of their business.
School payments service Wisepay has suffered a data breach after hackers reportedly gained entry into their database and modified a page so they could steal payment details.
The Wisepay data breach is understood to have occurred on the 2nd October 2020 and lasted for over two days.
Breaches of this kind that can expose customers’ payment details can be highly serious. Victims could be targeted for fraudulent payments, meaning that they may have to suspend their cards and monitor their accounts for suspicious activity. If fraudulent attempts are made, victims may have suffered financial loss before attempting to reclaim the money.
The NHS was subject to some of the worst healthcare cyberattacks of 2019. The year saw a continuous increase of data breaches with two-thirds of healthcare organisations in the UK understood to have been involved in some form of data breach last year.
Many of these data breaches stem from virus and malware attacks which often arise from a compromised third-party device.
A Freedom of Information request submitted by Centrify reportedly found that the NHS has blocked some 11.4 million cyberattacks between 2016 and 2019. This shows just how much the NHS is a huge target for cybercriminals, and how they have ended up being targeted for some of the worst healthcare cyberattacks of 2019.
Concerns have been raised over the surprising volume of DVLA data breaches reported to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) in 2019.
A data breach has to be significant enough to be reported to the ICO in most cases, so concerns over exactly what data has been breached, and how it has occurred so many times, have been raised.
Your Lawyers, as leading specialists in the field of data breach compensation law, have years of experience representing thousands of people for a host of privacy and information incidents. If you have suffered having had your data lost, stolen, exposed, or misused as a result of DVLA data breaches, you could be entitled to make a claim with us today.
The National Cyber Security Centre has issued an alert to education institutions over fears of increased cyber-attacks. It is predicted there will be more university and college cyberattacks this teaching year, which could be particularly harmful to students who are having to learn online this semester due to the coronavirus pandemic.
University and college cybercrimes often include a lot of ‘ransomware’ incidents where highly sensitive data is held and a ransom is demanded for payment to be issued for data to be decrypted or destroyed. Malicious software can be used to lock people out of their computer systems and cause whole organisations to grind to a halt.
As a leading, specialist data breach compensation law firm, we have years of experience in this field and we often help victims of a cyberattacks claim the compensation that they deserve. Where personal data is exposed, we can fight for the justice that victims are entitled to by law, and deserve as a victim of a breach event.
It has been reported that the Sandicliffe car dealership data breach occurred earlier this year in February and could possibly affect hundreds or thousands of people.
The data breach stemmed from a cyberattack that was a result of a phishing scam and it is currently unknown exactly how many people could have been affected. Information exposed could include personal and sensitive data such as financial information and medical details.
As a leading firm of data breach compensation specialists fighting for justice for thousands of victims in over 50 group and multi-party actions, we are offering No Win, No Fee legal support for anyone affected by the cyberattack.
If you have been affected by this breach, speak to a member of our team today for free and no-obligation advice here.
Eligible victims could claim compensation if their healthcare records are hacked. Personal information is hacked for a variety of reasons which is why we represent thousands of people for compensation claims arising from data breach events.
Medical records contain highly sensitive data that criminals can use to exploit victims or gain profit from, such as holding the information to ransom. Medical records usually contain extremely personal or valuable information, such as dates of birth, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, national insurance numbers, and even salary details on occasions, as well as names and contact information. This is on top of details about treatment and healthcare matters which are incredibly sensitive too.
It is important that people know their rights.
In the digital age, it is almost impossible to not provide personal information online, which could put your sensitive data in the hands of criminals if a breach occurs.
We have to trust companies to keep our sensitive data private and secure, but companies often suffer data breaches, both big and small. These breaches can be the result of many things, including system errors, cyber-attacks, employee errors, or poor security measures.
We are experts in the niche area of data breach law as a leading firm in the UK and can help eligible victims of a data breach claim the compensation that they deserve.
The British Airways ICO fine has been reduced from the proposed £183m initial intention to fine amount to just £20m; representing a significant reduction from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) of around 90%.
The British Airways data breach affected almost half a million customers across two periods in 2018. Highly sensitive data that included names, addresses, payment card numbers – including CCV numbers in some cases – were accessed by hackers in the attack.
Customers who made or changed a booking between 10.58pm on 21 August 2018 and 9:45pm on 5 September 2018, or customers who made a reward booking between 21st April 2018 and 28th July 2018, could be affected by the data breach. If this applies to you, you could be eligible to claim compensation now.
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